Supporting the child’s career aspirations #DoyourHomework

Close to his 4th birthday, one evening, Dhruv and I were watching a movie on DVD. The movie started with a car racing sequence of about 5 minutes. After the scene got over, he asked me to rewind and play it again. And again. And again. I must have done it for atleast 5 times when he announced, for the first time ever, with his eyes glued to the TV screen, “Mummy I will become a Car Racer when I grow up.”.

A car racer! This is the point where his imagination developed wings of what shall be his future career aspirations.

From here on, just like the kids of my peers, he wants to become ‘a lot of Men’ in his words which simply means he keeps drilling into my head names of different professions he wants to take up when he will grow up. He wants to be a fireman while we pass by the Jayanagar Fire station once a week, a road repairer when our car rocks like a boat braving the potholes in the roads, a construction person when he notices an unfinished flyover, a policeman who puts bad men into the jail, the amazon delivery person who brings fabulous books to our doorstep, the pizza delivery boy for the love of pizzas. These are just the ones I can remember at this moment.

He has started blogging too for he wants to write stories. Another aspiration, I guess. Blogging for him means opening the wordfile (MS Word) in the laptop and merely typing ABCD…..xyz randomly.

I came across a video recently about an experiment conducted in Mumbai where the parents were invited along with their children. In this experiment, the parents were asked to draw a career or a profession which they wanted their children to pursue in life. Simultaneously, the children were to come up with drawings of their own career aspirations. The results were surprising because there was a vast difference between the aspirations of parents and their children. While parents exhibited inclination towards conventional professions like teaching, medicine, scientists and pilot, their children’s art work revealed their wishes to become an artist, Ferrari racer, painter and dancer.This video drives me to become appreciative of the fact that the children, these days, are more aware of the numerous career options available and parents are recognizing the need to plan and do their homework early on irrespective of the career option their children choose later on.

This reminds me of an incidence from 3 years ago. A friend was planning to look for a school in Bangalore for her 6 year old daughter since she was returning to India from overseas. She was highly worked up about her daughter securing an admission in a school highly noted for its academics. She created a hypothetical situation for me asking me if I were to be in her position what parameters will I have to access a school? Dhruv was 2 years old, still very young at that time and I had no clues. I had no answers to her questions. She got irritated with my ignorance and lack of planning thinking it appropriate to counsel me to aspire for IIT for Dhruv.

Looking at this from another perspective, I realise why should I limit to IIT as the final destination when there is a MIT available. One thing is for sure whether it has to be about IIT ot MIT, whether it has to be about studying in India or abroad, I have to commence planning the finances and start making investments keeping in mind the forever escalating costs of education. I downloaded the Homework App on my phone which provides the relevant information for the future education costs with respect to various fields of study in India and abroad and how much investment I am required to make at present to be able to cover those costs.

I am confident. I have done my homework. Have you?

To Dhruv, I can assure – ‘You can be anything you desire to be since I am ready, emotionally and financially, with the investments to support your dream.’

This is a sponsored post, however the views expressed in this post are mine.

That’s the beauty of childhood…we can be anything that we wish to be…I think this should be nurtured and kids should dream as much as they can without us interfering and ruining it with our cold logic! Let them be as many things as they wish to be in a day…let them see the world and wonder and as they grow up, they will pick up one from the multitudes that they have been nurturing…it is then that we need to support them and help them realise it. I love Kahlil Gibran’s thoughts to parents – “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” Lovely post, again, Anamika.

Don’t even get me started on this. When the kids were about three H wanted to be a bus driver and N the bus didi – so they could be together. Now it’s a footballer and (God save me) an actress. They’re so streotypical in their choices it scares me sometimes. It makes sense to listen to the kids but they need to be guided too. It has to be a balance. Even a young teen might not be able to be the best judge of what he wants. I agree with that video but a balance is crucial.

I wanted to be a journalist ever since I started reading books! But yes, I am lucky I found out blogging, which almost satiates that little dreamer in me. Introduce him to the world of books and I am sure he will be a writer like you:)

Mithu also wanted to be a car mechanic, water service lorry driver, corporation cleaning lorry driver, boxer, actor, cricketer and much more……. At present he’s dreaming to become a Robotics Scientist ….. 😛 As parents we have to support them to get their ambition fulfilled rather than forcing our unfulfilled ambitions into them. Heartfelt wishes to you and Dhruv to achieve his ambition in life !!!

Isn’t it wonderful that children have so many more career options than we did? While it’s great to see some parents giving their children the freedom and the support to follow their dreams, it’s very sad when children are coerced into becoming what their parents want them to be.
My brother is an engineer and his wife a doctor, and their children have no inclination to be either. My sister-in-law’s colleagues are shocked when they are told that her children are not being sent for any coaching and go for music classes instead!

This reminds me of an interesting discussion I had with my nephew who was visiting India after a long time. He was 13 and I asked him what anyone would ask a boy who’s about to get into high school. I asked him what he wanted to do in life and he said he wanted to be a sports commentator. I was really surprised and so fascinated. I told him that was great and he really should! This got me thinking how many 13 year-olds in India would say something besides Doctor, engineer, chartered accountant or an MBA ?